WHEN TOM MET OLGA...

After swapping photos and trans-Atlantic faxes, they've brought to his
home a match made in Moscow

The Lead Story: from the front page of
the
December 21, 1995 issue of the Laurel Leader

He told
her in his first letter he was an average American guy with average looks
earning an average salary at the telephone company, where he'd worked for
15 years.

"I have never been late in all those years," the steady-as-he-goes
Howlin wrote the complete stranger, "and have only missed a week
from work due to sickness."

Home was a new, paid-for, $20,000 trailer in average North Laurel. "I
don't want for anything."

She seemed sweet, sensitive, caring.

And while she was a traditionalist in that she wanted marriage and motherhood,
she'd found most Russian men domineering and arrogant. She wasn't about
to mere settle.

It's a cold world out there, Tom Howlin found out when he tried to pick
up the pieces following the breakup of his 18-month marriage.

A dating service he signed up with let him down. He tried the singles
bar scene, but found most women were only interested in rich, movie-star
handsome men. He tried a singles gathering at a local church, but was
disappointed by the low turnout.

Nearing 40, he could feel the minutes of his life melting away. He wanted
a family.

Then he stumbled upon an ad for Encounters International. The service
run by Natasha Spivack, a former Russian language instructor in the graduate
studies program at Johns Hopkins, puts American men in contact with Russian
women and guarantees that clients who are serious about it will be engaged
within one year.

She and the Howlins all note the happy medium that results from the pairing
American men, who are looking for more traditional women, with Russian
women, who want men willing to treat them as equals.

The women come to Spivack's Moscow office for interviews and are asked,
among other things, how many children they have.

She wrote in her bio that she was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 141
pounds. Her interests included music, sports, history of the arts, poetry,
travel and animals.

She says she and her best friend signed up on a lark. The friend is now
married and living in Chicago.

When Mamonova got Howlin's letter and found out he lived in a trailer,
Spivack says, she was unconcerned. She wasn't a "princess" and
had no need to dwell "in a palace."

.As their correspondence progressed over several months, Howlin began
to look beyond her outer beauty as he caught glimpses of her soul.

She spoke about things like seeing a bird outside her window, about her
grandmother's village outside Moscow."

Olga Mamonova Howlin, a brunette with penetrating gray eyes and smooth
skin, is an only child whose parents divorced when she was 6. Her mother
is a former actress-turned-legal secretary. Now 22, Olga earned a degree
at 19 from Moscow Teachers College.

"I had my own apartment. I was all set."

She didn't want for boyfriends back home, either. "I thought I would
marry and live in Moscow all my life."

But she wasn't confident such a life would be a happy one. In the typical
Russian marriage. she says, the woman is a "slave". Russian
men "are very rude. Almost all of them drink and smoke."

Spivack says Russia offers a rich harvest of "unclaimed" young
women who adhere to traditional ways. After a woman had passed into her
mid 20s, she says, most Russian men find her undesirable. And men are
hesitant to commit because of Russia's shaky economy and the resulting
uncertainty in their own financial status.

In Olga, Spivack saw a young, intelligent woman who was ready to fall
in love with the right man

"She sensed in Tom a good family man. He could have been German
or Australian. She said she didn't need a castle."

By December 1993, Tom and Olga had decided it was time to meet. He took
a deep breath, opened his pocketbook wide, and set off in search of true
happiness.

Howlin's mother, who was suspicious of the whole deal, worried to the
point that she sent her husband, Howlin's stepfather, a seasoned traveler,
along with him for the ride. Olga met them at the airport

In person

When Spivack's couples meet, she offers to put them up in a separate
rooms in a bed-and-breakfast she rents near Red Square. This neutral ground,
she offers, allows the two parties to get to know each other on equal
footing.

This time, though, Howlin's stepfather took the second room, and Olga
stayed in her own apartment.

Howlin did some sight-seeing, but remained focused on his business there.

on the third day, Howlin took his intended to a popular local restaurant.
Spivack and Howlin's stepfather sat at a separate table. As Tom and Olga
dined on a typical Russian spread, including the obligatory caviar and
vodka, Tom proposed.

""When he asked me to marry him, it was very logical,"
Olga recalls. "I had no doubts about it."

A few nights later, at Olga's apartment, Tom asked his future mother-in-law
for permission to marry her only child. The memorable event is captured
on videotape, which Spivack uses for promotional purposes.

On the tape, a confident Howlin can be seen raising a wine glass while
asking for "her hand in marriage. I'll do my best for her,"
he promises.

Again, he got a yes.

After Howlin returned home, the two plunged into paperwork. He petitioned
the Immigration and Naturalization Service for an alien fiancee visa.
Meanwhile, Olga went to the American Embassy and picked up the required
forms. She got the required medical checkup and a police clearance. Federal
Express delivered to her an airline ticket to the states.

Three months later, in March 1994, Olga said good-bye to her native land.
She arrived at Dulles International Airport, where Howlin was waiting.

Here first impression? "It was ... a very high, blue sky,"
she remembers. "In Moscow, the sky is always low and gray. It's an
old city."

Tomorrow

Howlin took the route through downtown Washington, past the monuments
and the Capitol. "I had no second thoughts," his bride remembers.
"I had made up mind."

In May, they were married in a Baptist church near Tom's mother's home
in Alabama. They honeymooned in New Orleans. Last April, they became the
proud parents of Alyna.

Asked if the 20-year age difference bothers her, Olga doesn't have to
think long. She contends it has made her grow up. "I think I became
an adult after I got married. I have to take care of my family, my baby.

Russian women are more mature. For an American man to catch up, he should
be no less than eight years older."

A few Sundays before Christmas, the Howlins are puttering around their
spacious trailer on Center Street, opposite Laurel Dodge. Olga, in white
sweat socks, boils water at the stove and gets ready to go to her part-time
job at the Cosmetic Center.

The living room walls have mementos: a class picture of her old pre-school
class. Another of her mother holding Olga when she was a toddler. On the
TV, the Giants are beating the Redskins.

At the kitchen table, Howlin is feeding Alyna vanilla custard pudding
baby food. Father and daughter are all smiles, as the spoon makes one
direct hit after another.

"We have a very stable life," Olga says, pulling up a seat
before heading off to work. "In Russia, they live day by day and
they don't care about what will happen tomorrow."

The transition to life in America hasn't been easy, she admits. "People
here are very nice, but it's difficult to make friends. Everybody smiles,
but they have no idea what it's like to be a real friend."

Howlin picks up the baby and gently tosses her into the air. He reckons
his investment in happiness cost him between $3500 and $4000.

"It's definitely worth it," he says, holding a giggling Alyna.
"But you have to be willing to commit yourself," and get used
to the language and cultural barriers that are part of the package.

"It's difficult enough having a relationship with an American woman."

Howlin believes so strongly that he did the right thing, in fact, that
he has taken it upon himself to show others the way. He has written a
manual to help other American men through the complicated process of meeting,
courting and bringing home Russian wives.

It's called, "The American-Russian Marriage Companion: What you
should know about American-Russian dating services, paperwork and successful
relationships."

The paperwork, logistical headaches and potential for fraud in such pursuit
may be formidable, but Howlin says his booklet can help men in search
of brides tame such hassles.